My DPhil, supervised by Professor Christian Leitmeir, intends to centre the insights offered by European music theorists into the origins, production and power of music in the long sixteenth century (c. 1480-1620). Their writings describe a uniquely human music, that hovered between imperceptible cosmic harmony and the sounds produced by instruments. This musica humana could take the form of scientific and spiritual investigation into the inner harmony, and proved a persuasive means through which to articulate the stakes of music making. My project will investigate how their paradigm centred music within broader humanist discourses surrounding moral and physical difference.
